


Room For One More Troubled Soul

by Allidon



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-16
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-03-30 21:13:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3951958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allidon/pseuds/Allidon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They’ve done pretty well for themselves, all things considered. They’ve got a ship, and mostly they keep her in the air, and that’s a lot more than most people manage. They pick up work where they can, sometimes legal but mostly less so, and they’ve built a reasonable reputation over the years, enough that they can pick and choose their jobs a lot of the time which Mickey takes advantage of wherever possible. He’s got no desire to raise flags, remind the Alliance that the Milkovich kids are still out there somewhere with the potential to carry on their father’s mission. All he wants, all he can ever really hope for, is they get left alone to live their lives in peace, to work enough to get by. He’s not one for positive thinking, but it’s been three years and he’s starting to feel like maybe it’s permanent this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've had this on the backburner for a while, but I finally got a whole chapter of it done so I wanted to get it posted before I go back to finishing up P&P au. It started off being based on the Firefly 'verse, but then I chucked in a bunch of stuff from Farscape and other shows, and some stuff that I think I made up but possibly I took from somewhere else, idk? Anyway, it's whole mish-mash now of every space thing I ever saw. Hopefully it works!
> 
> Also, all my knowledge of actual space came from the aforementioned sci-fi programming, so is more than likely all entirely wrong.
> 
> Title is from Alone Together by Fall Out Boy.

When Mickey was seven years old, his father taught him how to fly.

Mickey can remember it vividly, even now when fifteen years and counting have passed. It had been early evening, because he remembers the exact position of the sun on the horizon, and his knuckles were bruised where he’d punched some kid at school for talking shit about his sister, and his arms were so short that he could barely reach the control panel. The shuttle they had back then was already bordering on obsolete, with foot pedals and manual controls, and Mickey can remember perching on the very edge of his father’s knees, giving him just enough height to reach the stick, and the way he jiggled from side to side as his dad manoeuvred the pedals. He can remember the tight hold of his father’s hands over his own as he showed him how the controls worked, the way his father’s clothes smelled like chemicals from the power plant mixed in with the smell of cheap liquor and chewing tobacco that lingered on his breath. He can remember the grinding sound of the engine when he hadn’t pulled the lever quite far enough, the jolt as the shuttle shot forward, the wobble when it first left the ground.

What he remembers most though, is the way it felt—the way it seemed like as they left the ground they left everything else behind too. That first time he was only off the ground for a couple of minutes before his hands slipped on the control stick and they went careening back down, his father grabbing at it just in time to make sure they landed properly. It didn’t matter though, that it had only been two minutes. It had been enough to get Mickey hooked.

He practised every day after that, racing towards their house—a barely put together shack in the back-end of nowhere that his mother cared for as if it were the biggest, most beautiful house ever built—over the uneven ground from where the battered old school bus dropped them off. They’d been living on that particular moon for about six months, because the terraforming on the planet where Mickey and his brother and sister had been born had broken down suddenly and disastrously. They’d been rescued by soldiers—Mickey doesn’t remember much about that besides being woken up in the middle of the night by figures dressed in black with their faces hidden behind helmets; Iggy still teases him sometimes about the fact that Mickey had had nightmares about it for years—and they’d been bumped around refugee ships for a while before they’d ended up on that tiny moon, which spoke volumes about how many people from Mickey’s planet that the Alliance _hadn’t_ saved. His mother had been pragmatic about it, grateful that at least _they_ had got out, had been given somewhere to go, but all it had done where Terry was concerned was nurture the seed of hate he already held for the Alliance, for people telling him what to do and where to live and how to run his family. “Murderers, is what they are,” Mickey had heard him say, voice slurred by anger and drink and tiredness. “Left those people to burn. Don’t see their planets crumbling, do we? Just us fuckers out here.”

Mickey knows now that so much of what his father taught them in those following years was not so much parental involvement and far more like a pre-emptive strike, Terry lining everything up like a game of chess while he got deeper and deeper into actively fighting the Alliance, but to eight year old Mickey, the pride in his father’s voice as he finally left the atmosphere for the first time, steering the shuttle all by himself, had been all he could have wished for, all he needed for his stomach to burn with excitement as he carefully orbited the moon, trying to get the neatest circle he could just so he could hear it again. “That’s my boy,” Terry had said, and Mickey had smiled, not even caring when it cracked open the cut on his lip from yet another fight at school. (“Show those fuckers, you don’t mess with a Milkovich,” was what his dad always told them, so that’s what Mickey did.)

His father had settled back against the chair by the third orbit, content to let Mickey handle the ship, and closed his eyes, his whole body relaxing in a way that Mickey had never seen before. “Can’t nothin’ touch us up here, son,” his dad had said, and Mickey had stared out into the black, fascinated by how big and vast it seemed, how far he could fly if he wanted to. “Up here, we’re as free as birds. Can’t no-one touch us.”

When Mickey looks back now it’s like those words are smoke, dark tendrils snaking into his ears and then taking root in his brain and growing like cancer. He’s not sure why they take on such an sinister image when he recalls them—although Mandy would probably have something to say about it if he told her, which he has no intention of doing _ever_ —because really, despite all that he knows about his father now and everything that’s happened between them, those words have stayed with him ever since he heard them, have shaped his entire existence, are pretty much what he lives his life by. That’s some character-building shit right there, as Iggy would put it. But then, things with his dad have never been simple.

*

They’ve done pretty well for themselves, all things considered. They’ve got a ship, and mostly they keep her in the air, and that’s a lot more than most people manage. They pick up work where they can, sometimes legal but mostly less so, and they’ve built a reasonable reputation over the years, enough that they can pick and choose their jobs a lot of the time which Mickey takes advantage of wherever possible. He’s got no desire to raise flags, remind the Alliance that the Milkovich kids are still out there somewhere with the potential to carry on their father’s mission. All he wants, all he can ever really hope for, is they get left alone to live their lives in peace, to work enough to get by. He’s not one for positive thinking, but it’s been three years and he’s starting to feel like maybe it’s permanent this time.

They’re in a good spell right now, their last couple of jobs having left them with enough fuel and supplies to last a good few weeks, maybe longer if they’re careful, and they’re all well overdue a break. Mickey’s itching to get out of the confines of the solar system, to get out into open space and just fly, and he knows that as long as they make a stop or two along the way, Iggy and Mandy are happy enough to let him have it. They don’t understand it, that overwhelming sense he has sometimes of needing to be out there and flying, to be untethered from everything except the ship and the controls in his hands, but they don’t mind indulging it from time to time either, given all they’ve been through. They’ve all got needs, and this one is Mickey’s.

He’s on his way down to his bunk, tired from that last security job but with a renewed sense of excitement at the upcoming down time, when he’s nearly knocked off his feet by Mandy wheeling out from under one of the bulkheads. She grins up at him, a screwdriver between her teeth and a streak of grease on her forehead.

“What the fuck, Mandy?” he exclaims as he regains his footing. She rolls off her creeper, grabbing the screwdriver out of her mouth and sliding it back into her utility belt with a frown.

“Environmentals are on the fritz,” she says, by way of an explanation.

His eyebrows shoot up. “And that gives you free range to break my fucking legs?”

She reaches out and shoves his shoulder, and then the frown deepens. “I’m serious, asshole. The environmentals go and we’re space dust.”

“Me too, you nearly fucking killed me.” He takes a breath before he speaks again, because he knows he’s not going to like the answer. At all. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” she says. “I think I’ve patched it for now but one of the air pumps is totally dead and the other one’s not got a whole lot of time left either. We need to replace them, soon.”

He knows better than to question her on this; Mandy knows her shit and if Mandy says it’s fucked, then that means it’s well and truly fucked. “Shit,” is all he says, and she shrugs.

“Had to happen sometime. She’s an old lady.” He snorts, and she glares at him through narrowed eyes. “Hey, don’t ridicule me. I’m the one keeping us in the air right now. She’s a lady and she needs treating right.”

He doesn’t miss the pointedness of her comment, and he sighs resignedly. “How much, Mandy?”

“Maybe nothing?” she says, and then she grins and his heart sinks. Of course she totally had a plan already. “Well, a salvage job came up a couple of hours ago, a pretty decent one too. The ship’s bigger than this but it’s from the same production line, the pumps should fit. Do it right, and we could kill two birds. It’s just…” She trails off, fidgeting a little.

He gives her a moment, just long enough for it to become clear she’s waiting for him to ask. “Just what?”

“It’s right on the edge of the controlled territory. Not _in_ it, but—”

_Close enough_ , Mickey adds silently. Close enough to put their hard-fought for freedom in serious jeopardy. “Great,” he says. “That’s just totally fucking excellent.” He knows Mandy’s right though, that if anything they’ve been lucky to get this far without anything serious breaking down, and if the pumps break for real then that’s it, game over and sayonara. Besides, if this ship’s as similar to theirs as Mandy thinks then there’s probably a bunch of other parts that they can salvage at the same time and that could save them a hell of a lot of trouble in the long run. The downtime can wait a couple of days if it means they get some insurance like that.

“We can totally pull it off, though,” she says. “And it’ll be way cheaper than buying the parts, if we can even find them anywhere else. The commission’s really good too, should cover a couple of refuels, and it’d look really good for us if—” He holds his hand up, and she cuts herself off mid-sentence and grins at him.

“Fine,” he says. “You sold me at free parts. Go put in a claim for the job and then show me where we need to fucking go.”

*

Ten minutes later and they’re crowded around the table in the middle of the control room. Mickey’s got the map loaded, planets and moons projected up from the centre of the console in bright orange light, and Mandy’s pointing out where the derelict ship they need to salvage is positioned. She’s right, it’s dangerously close to controlled territory, close enough that even Iggy’s kind of wary about it.

“There’s bases here and here,” Mickey says, sliding his hands into the light and then pulling them apart to zoom in. “This one,” he says, and he twists his hand to focus in on it, pulling the image of the station up and out until it’s centred and big enough for them all to see. “Is small, and far enough out that it shouldn’t be an issue. Just need to keep an eye on it.”

“Yeah,” Iggy says impatiently, as he sticks his hand in from his side and shifts the projected image until there’s a different planet in focus. “But _this_ one is gonna be an issue.”

“It’s still pretty far,” Mandy says with a shrug. “We can be in and out before they notice anything.”

“Maybe,” Iggy says. “But if they do, they can be there in less than fifteen minutes. I don’t like that window, bro,” he adds, turning to Mickey and waiting for the agreement that Mickey knows he’s expecting. Mickey looks at the map again, twists the image of the moon that the Alliance base is orbiting around and back again as he mulls it over.

“We can pull it off,” he says finally, decisively. Iggy opens his mouth to protest, and Mickey waves him off. “The ship isn’t that big; Mandy can get the parts while I get the shit for the job.” Mandy grins and punches the air. “Ig, you monitor the base from here, and if you see traffic heading our way then we bounce. Fifteen minutes is plenty of time for us to be gone before they get anywhere near.”

“I don’t like it,” Iggy says, testily. “What if they come up faster than we expect? This is why we need actual fucking weapons on this wreck.”

“Yeah, because shooting at Alliance ships is gonna do great for our reputation,” Mandy scoffs, rolling her eyes. “We’d never get work again. Not the kind we want anyway.”

Iggy flips her off, stalking towards the flight controls. “Whatever. When those soldiers come down on us, you’re gonna be wishing you let me keep that fucking cannon.”

“I’d rather keep my clean record, thanks all the same,” she shoots back. “With my fucking skillset, I’d be wasted in a prison camp.”

“That’s what you think,” Iggy quips, eyes on the screen as he starts plotting the course. “They’d never let you fucking leave.”

“All the more reason I want to stay on the outside then, shithead,” she throws at him as she heads towards the door to get the pod prepped.

Mickey pinches the bridge of his nose, exhaling loudly. “Jesus, could you two give this shit a rest long enough to get the job done? Mandy’s right, Iggy. We start shooting up the Alliance and the only people who'll suffer for it is us. We just gotta accept they own that half of the sky, and stick to ours as best we can.”

Mandy turns and grins triumphantly, hands on her hips. “Told you. I like my freedom, thanks.” She’s gone before Iggy can get another retort in, and Mickey listens to her footsteps echoing away and then sighs, leaning forward to rest his head on the console. Freedom is exactly what he’s longing for, had been right within his grasp until all of fifteen minutes ago. He breathes in and out slowly, and then pushes himself up and out of his seat.

“Don’t worry,” Iggy says unexpectedly, still focused on the screen. “We’ll be out there soon enough, bro.”

Mickey sure hopes so.

*

They make good time to the salvage site, even with Mandy’s insistence that they turn off non-essential functions to ease pressure on the pumps, and Mickey manually manoeuvres their ship in behind the larger abandoned one, putting it between them and that damned base in the hopes of taking advantage of the cover just in case anyone does come looking. It’s not really a failsafe, but Mickey’s determined to take all the precautions he can get when they’re so close to the Alliance, closer than they’ve been in years, since that last job with their dad.

The junker might be off the same production line as theirs, but it’s hard to believe it when they get up close, see how tiny their heap is in comparison. Mandy’s face lights up in excitement though, reels off a list of compatible parts she’s hoping to scavenge, and Mickey’s gotta say the prospect of picking this thing clean is almost worth the risk. Almost.

The two of them squeezed into the transport pod is probably closer than Mickey would prefer, Mandy’s elbow jabbing into his sternum as she slides her fingers over her handheld, scanning the ship to map out its access points, and he gets her back by making sure his shoulder pushes back against hers every time he turns the control stick, moving them into dock.

“Watch it, assface,” she says, but there’s no heat in it, and she returns her focus to the plans in front of her. “You need to go up here,” she shows him, after they’re docked. “According to the job specs, the haul should be in this section, right off the control deck. I’ll head down here,” she indicates another location on her screen, “and get the parts we need. Hit up the galley on your way back, if there’s time. Might be stuff worth taking.”

“Yes, sir,” he says mockingly, and she scowls at him.

“Fuck you,” she says, and then her face softens. “Be careful.”

“You too,” he says. “Back here in thirty minutes, we take what we got and don’t stay for more.”

“Agreed,” she says with a nod, and then they move off in their separate directions.

*

It doesn’t take Mickey long to find what he’s looking for—two data sticks, an entertainment  cube and a bag of loose coin—which he finds somehow hilarious and concerning at the same time. He’s done run-of-the-mill security details that took more effort than this, which kind of begs the question as to why somebody would bother to pay someone to find it rather than just coming to get it themselves. The answer is obvious; the Alliance presence is enough to make it too risky for someone with the means to pay other people to take the risk instead, and that realisation has him moving back towards the docking bay without bothering to look much further around the control deck. He doesn’t like the implication here, that this job is somehow riskier than their initial assessment, and he’s not keen to stick around to prove himself right. He stops off at the galley and calls Mandy as he’s raking through the storage compartments, throwing any food that’s not likely to have spoiled into his bag.

“Hey,” she answers, voice muffled as if she’s holding her screwdriver in her mouth again.

“Where we at?” he says, throwing another couple of packs of dried rations in with the rest.

“Almost there,” she says, and then there’s a grunt and then a clang. “I’ve got the pumps, and some other bits.”

“I think it’s time to go,” he says. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”

“Right,” she says. “One more part and I’ll meet you in—” She’s cut off by feedback as Iggy dials in.

“Patrol,” he says. “We gotta bounce. Now, we don’t have much time.”

“What?” Mickey backs up, moves towards the door. “That base is fifteen minutes away, and there’s no way they’ll—”

“It’s not _from_ the base,” Iggy says impatiently. “It’s coming at us from the other side, twenty single guns. We got five minutes, tops.”

“Shit,” Mickey curses, and he shoves the comm device back into the pocket of his trousers as he breaks out into a run. He skids into the docking bay, almost colliding with Mandy whose own bag is bulging. She’s got more parts in her hand, and they have to pause for breath to actually get inside the pod without crushing together in the entrance port.

“I don’t get it,” Mandy says, breathless as Mickey starts the pod. “We checked everywhere.”

“Not well enough,” Mickey says shortly, pulling the pod up and out. “Wherever they came from, we need to get the fuck outta here.”

The journey back to their own ship seems to take far too long, time stretching out as Mickey mentally counts down Iggy’s five minutes. There’s bile rising in his throat, sheer panic setting into his gut as he remembers the last time they had a call this close, and he grips the controls hard enough that his knuckles turn white. Mandy leans over, rests her hands over his.

“Breathe,” she says, and all he can do is nod soundlessly as the panic rises, fills his throat until he can't breathe, until the darkness dances at the edge of his vision. “Breathe,” she repeats to him, and her other hand is on his back, rubbing and rubbing until the lump in his throat bursts like a bubble, lets the panic seep out so he can breathe again. He sucks in oxygen like he’d been drowning, big gasping breaths until he can see again, until he can relax his grip on the controls. “Bring us in,” Mandy says, voice soft and deceptively calm. “You can do it.”

He knows she’s freaking out as much as he is, is as desperate to put space between them and here as he is, but he leans on her faith on him anyway, guides them in, leaps out of the pod when it’s barely stopped moving.

He grabs his comm back out of his pocket as he begins his dash towards the front of the ship. “Iggy,” he yells into it. “Iggy, go.”

He waits for the familiar rumble of the engine, waits for them to get into motion, but instead all he hears is his brother’s voice. “They see us,” Iggy says, voice panicked. “They’re right on us, Mick, I can’t—”

“You can,” he says, breathing heavy. “Just get us moving and I’ll do the rest, ok? Just do it, Ig—”

The engines do rumble then, but it’s not in the usual way, not in the way Mickey’s expecting. Instead they creak, and then screech, and then Mickey feels the floor start to vibrate.

“No,” he shouts, into the ship rather than into the comm at Iggy. He knows that at least is pointless—if Iggy’s set the ship to jump then there’s no going back, and he’s pretty sure his brother isn’t thinking straight enough to listen to Mickey’s protestations anyway.

Mickey can count on one hand the number of times he’s done a space jump, and that handful of times is far too many for his liking. It’s a last resort tactic—and maybe this is a last resort type of situation—the kind where you’re out of options and you need to be anywhere but here, right the fuck now. It’s a wholly uncomfortable experience, jumbling up your insides and scrambling your brain up, and the last time they had used it had taken days for Mickey to feel right again.

Even with all that in mind though, the biggest issue is navigational—there’s no telling where you might end up, how far it might take you. You plot a rough course, but the damn thing overshoots more than it ever lands on target and more than anything Mickey _hates_ not planning where they end up. All things considered, you could find yourself in even more dire straits than you’re already in, and Mickey’s never willing to take that chance.

Not that he’s getting much choice in the matter this time, the walls are vibrating now where he’s leaning against it, and the screeching is getting louder, and then it’s inside his head and the screeching is coming from him, screaming with his hands over his ears and his eyes squeezed shut.

It’s over as quick as it started, juddering to a halt and then silence falling like a blanket. Mickey’s shaking, curled in on himself, his stomach churning. When he open his eyes, everything looks wrong, like he’s drunk too much liquor and not in the fun way. It’s like he’s separated from the world, disjointed somehow, and it takes pretty much all he has not to vomit.

“Iggy,” he croaks into his still open comm. “What the fuck?”

“Sorry man,” Iggy mumbles, his disembodied voice floating out of the device like Mickey’s almost imagining it. He grips at the metal grid of the floor until the edges dig hard into his fingers, desperate to ground himself somehow. “Needed to get the fuck out quick.”

“Fuck,” Mickey breathes out, leaning his face into the floor alongside his fingers. “I’d take the prison camp over this.”

Iggy’s voice is sterner when it comes through again, like he’s regaining his composure. “You don’t mean that. You’ve seen that shit Mick and you ain’t never going back there again.”

“Whatever,” Mickey sighs, feeling some of his own composure return. “Where the fuck are we?”

“Not sure. But we’re not where we were and that’s all I give a shit about right— _fuck_.” The curse comes through loud and harsh, and Mickey pulls the comm away from his still-ringing ears.

“What now?”

“We brought a friend with us,” Iggy mutters, and Mickey sits upright so fast that the disorientation seems to settle and then immediately flow in the other direction just to mess him up further. “Just one,” his brother adds. “I’m pulling it in.”

“What?” Mickey shouts, and then winces at the loudness of his own voice. “Why the fuck would you—”

“He has _guns,_ ” Iggy reminds him pointedly. “No fucking way am I leaving it out there for him to shoot them at us. It’s in the docking bay. I’d get down there and disarm that fucker.”

Mickey hangs up on him without another word, and then calls Mandy.

“I heard,” she says. She sounds better than either Mickey or Iggy do, and Mickey wonders if all that time she spends with the engines has already scrambled her brain enough that space jumps just roll right off her. He’s kinda jealous, if he’s honest. He’s probably not gonna sleep for a week.

“I’m heading back down to the bay,” he says. “You ok?”

“Fine,” she says. “That shit doesn’t bother me,” she adds, and he hears the creak of machinery behind her and takes it as proof of his theory. “We’re gonna need to take a stop for a while, need to let the engine cool down. Give me chance to fit these pumps, anyway.”

“How long,” he asks. Jump or not, that was a close call and he doesn’t want to take the chance of staying in one place too long, especially if they’ve taken an Alliance gunner along for the ride.

“Couple of hours,” she says. “I promise, no longer than necessary.”

“Make sure of it,” he says tersely, and then hangs up just as he reaches the docking bay.

The gunship is lurching dangerously to one side, the shiny Alliance decals scorched from the jump and then scraped over from where Iggy had pulled it in through their probably almost-too-small docking window. It’s smaller than Mickey expected though, smaller than they look when they’re coming at you all at once. He almost wants to laugh.

The door of the ship starts to open with a hiss, and Mickey grabs his gun out of its holster at his hip, aiming it towards the widening entrance. A pair of legs appears first, clad in shiny black boots and the tight black trousers he’s seen on Alliance soldiers before, two red stripes up either side.

“Don’t move,” Mickey shouts, taking a step forward. The soldier freezes, although the door continues its slow opening. His torso starts to come into vision as Mickey takes another step forward, and then his arms raised in obvious surrender. He’s still wearing his helmet, facial features entirely obscured by the black visor, and Mickey has to push down those nightmarish childhood memories. “Jump down,” he says, and then adds, “ _slowly,_ ” as the soldier braces to jump down. He lowers himself down carefully instead, hanging off the edge of his ship and then hitting the floor gracefully, before slowly raising into a standing position, hands still held high. Mickey keeps his gun raised, moves forward and quickly removes the soldier’s own gun which had remained holstered at his waist. Mickey has to wonder what this guy was thinking, heading into unknown and probably hostile territory with his gun hanging useless at his hip, but he’s certainly not complaining.

“On your knees,” he growls harshly from his position at the soldier’s back, and then he nudges the small of the guy’s back with the barrel of his gun for good measure. The soldier’s got a good few inches on him, but he does as he’s told, carefully crouching and then shifting onto his knees. “Helmet off,” Mickey orders, and the soldier freezes, and it’s only then that Mickey registers that the guy had been trembling before. “Helmet off, asshole,” he repeats, and the soldier obeys this time, reaching up and pressing the release button on the side before lifting it off his head and placing it on the floor in front of him. He doesn’t linger, lifting his hands back up and then linking them together over the back of his head, where his ginger hair is buzzed short.

“Right,” Mickey says, hoping he sounds far more authoritative than he feels. “You and I have got some shit to discuss.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's just ignore the fact that it's taken me ten months to update this, shall we? ok, good. hopefully my horrific writer's block is now obliterated but I wouldn't like to speak too soon

Mickey’s fairly certain that someone in the universe is out to get him.

It's the only explanation for the ridiculous chain of events that’s landed them here, stuck out in the reaches of the galaxy with a ship that’s useless for the next few hours at least, a prisoner who has to be the most stubborn jackass he's ever had the misfortune to run into, and a jump-induced headache that feels like his brain might just pulse hard enough to crack his skull.

The former, Mandy has assured him, is being dealt with as they speak. She hates the engines being inoperative as much as he does, although not really for the same reason, and even in his least generous state of mind—which he's rapidly approaching—he trusts her judgment on this enough to accept their current situation, even if that means that they’re effectively a sitting duck if anyone else happens to come along. Nifty manoeuvring has always been the best—hell, the _only_ —line of defence they have, and with the engines powered down and cold they’re entirely out of other options.

The headache he knows, from painful and unpleasant experience, will wear off in the next day or so, a fact which is little comfort right now. The last time he had drunk himself into a stupor while the ache pounded itself out, but the only liquor he has is the bottle of expensive honeyed whiskey he’s had stashed in his bunk for the best part of a year. He’s been saving it for a special occasion, and this really doesn’t count.

The prisoner problem is the one that’s really demanding his attention right now, and it’s also the one that Mickey’s coming up blanks on in terms of a solution. He’s been throwing questions at the guy for over an hour, and so far there’s not been even a flicker of a reaction, despite the fact that the soldier’s clearly suffering the same after-effects of the jump as Mickey is. It’s incredible actually, that the more Mickey yells at him, throws questions at him, threatens him, the more the soldier seems determined not to react, and now they’re at an impasse, Mickey barely containing his frustration, the soldier sitting deathly still, his chin jutted out defiantly with the barest hint of a smirk playing on his lips.

If Mickey learned one thing from his time under his father's boot, it's that everyone talks eventually. Everyone gives up. You just have to apply the right leverage, push in the right places. Of course, in Terry's language leverage actually meant pain, and sometimes it seemed to Mickey like his father enjoyed the pain part just as much as the getting them to talk part. Probably more, in fact.

Terry would have killed this guy by now. Hell, Terry would have killed him before his boots even hit the floor. Taking prisoners was never his first choice.

Mickey Milkovich is not his father. Mickey’s violent by necessity, rather than by nature, and these days he limits that necessity wherever possible.

He used to think of it as a flaw, that he could never be like him, never be as calculating or as ruthless, that no matter what he did Terry would always go that step further and so Mickey would never ever be good enough in comparison. Of course, then Terry had gone way too far and Mickey had realised that not being his father was what made him worth saving.

He’s not sure how far he’d go to protect his siblings though, and the thought is terrifying.

He accepts defeat, temporarily at least, and heads back out into the corridor to call Mandy. She sounds way too cheerful when she answers, and it takes a whole lot of control for him not to just hang up.

“How’s the repair coming?” he asks instead, and he can almost hear the eye roll in response.

“About half an hour further along than when you asked half an hour ago,” she says drily. “A hell of a lot quicker if you’d stop calling for updates.”

“I need a favour,” he says. “Need you to go check out that Alliance ship. See if you can anything I can use on him.”

“Like what? You hoping for holos of his friends and family? I don’t think they do feelings Mick.”

She’s got a point. He’s not sure what he’s expecting from the ship either, only that if he goes much longer without a reaction he’s going to lose his temper and he’s not eager to find out what happens as a result.

“I don’t fucking know, just something. Anything. Dude’s like a robot, he’s not even flinching.”

“All right,” she says. “Just let me finish up here and I’ll run some diagnostics while I’m playing detective.”

“Get Iggy down there to help,” Mickey adds. It’s not like their brother’s busy anyway. Probably holed up in his bunk cleaning his guns. Mickey’s fairly certain Iggy’s given them names. “Keep an eye on the comms though.”

“Sure,” Mandy says, her voice dangerous. “You want me to stick a mech-sweeper up my ass while I’m at it?”

“Depends how clean this guy keeps his ship,” Mickey retorts, but the joke falls flat and he’s met with a tense silence.

“Hey Mandy,” he says suddenly. “Um, thanks.”

There’s an awkward moment as Mandy takes in the rare acknowledgement.

“Whatever,” she says eventually. “Shithead.”

Mickey hangs up, and then gives his comm the finger for good measure. He paces up and down the corridor for a moment, trying to figure out what his next move should be. He hates it down here, finds it somehow darker, even more claustrophobic than the rest of the ship. It’s worse than usual just now, the deafening sound of the engines that’s usually unavoidable down here replaced with an eerie, still silence that sets his teeth on edge. It’s the perfect place to hold a prisoner though, or at least as near as they’re gonna get, away from all essential function and their own living space, limiting the amount of knowledge that can be picked up about them while he’s trying to get all he can out of the soldier.

He’s _really_ wishing they hadn’t taken that damn job.

He takes a deep breath, swipes his hand over his face, and then pushes back into the room to continue the questioning.

Mandy reckons this room was the captain’s office back when the ship had more than the bare bones of a skeleton crew, and that the rooms back here were the crew’s quarters, allowing the larger and better equipped rooms at the front of the ship to be used by paying passengers. That was a business idea that had never taken off once the Milkovich siblings had commandeered the ship, and so they’d taken the nicer quarters for themselves and left the ones back here fading into disrepair.

There’s a desk in the far corner of the room, bolted to the floor with a chair either side, and the soldier’s bound to it using a roll of electrical tape that Mickey had found on a shelf, probably left there by Mandy on one of her attempts at patching up broken bits of the ship. The soldier’s obviously been taking a breather too, his face not quite as composed as it had been when Mickey had left the room, but as Mickey comes closer he manages to pull together a cold and unblinking stare which he unleashes full force on Mickey.

The first thing that had struck Mickey about the soldier, once he’d got him secured down here earlier, and strangely what strikes him again now even as he tries so clearly to intimidate Mickey, is how young he actually is.

He’s not sure what he was expecting really—he’s never seen one of them without a helmet before—but it certainly wasn’t this; certainly wasn’t someone who’s barely more than a kid, barely older than Mandy.

(Of course, barely older than Mandy translates to barely younger than Mickey, but Mickey doesn’t follow that thought through. It’s been a long time since he thought of himself as young, and he’s pretty sure he’s never really been a kid. Terry had seen to that.)

Somehow that youth makes the soldier all the more disconcerting. It seems so incompatible with the emotionless expression on his face, his complete control over every tiny movement of his body, the way that even his breathing, almost unnoticeable, seems like it's more choice than bodily instinct, like each inhalation of breath is borne out of a conscious decision to stay alive. Like if he chose differently, he would have such strength of will to stop living, just like that.

Mickey almost envies him for it.

“Let’s try this again,” he says harshly. “You tell me what I want to know, and I won’t have to hurt you.”

The soldier doesn’t even blink, green eyes boring holes into Mickey as if he can see right through him. Mickey’s spine prickles.

“Have it your way,” he says, his voice soft and menacing. His fist clenches at his side, and he wants to do it, he wants to.

_Mickey Milkovich is not his father._

He makes it three paces down the corridor before he punches the wall.

*

Iggy’s already down in the docking bay when Mandy gets there, apparently inspecting the gunship’s weapons capacity.

“Took you long enough,” he says when he spots her coming in.

“Fuck off,” she responds, her voice scathing. “Some of us have got actual work to do.”

Iggy shrugs. “I was working.”

“Cleaning your stupid guns is a hobby, Ig. It’s not work.”

He shrugs again, grinning good naturedly. “You won’t be saying that when they’re saving your ass. You’ll be thanking me for due diligence or whatever.”

“Or whatever,” she agrees. “C’mon, let’s get this done. I got shit to be doing.”

It’s tight inside the ship, a space clearly designed for a pilot and not much else. She’s not sure what Mickey’s hoping they’ll find in here, and it’s no clearer for seeing the ship first hand. The tiny control deck, such as it is, is immaculate, and there’s no immediate signs of any kind of personal items or any personality at all. Maybe Mickey was closer than he thought when he suggested the guy was a robot.

“This is weird,” Iggy says from behind her. “Way too clean.”

She nods her agreement, and turns her attention to the control panels. It’s not immediately obvious what most of the functions are, and she carefully avoids touching anything. This thing could be capable of all sorts of shit.

“I don’t even know why we’re doing this,” Iggy continues. “I say we just kill him.”

Mandy barely looks up in response to Iggy’s statement. “You think we should kill everyone,” she says absently, focused on what she’s pretty sure are the navigational controls. She pulls at the handle on the casing underneath, cursing when she yanks the flap down and all she finds are a mish mash of electrical wires leading into the front nose of the ship.

“I’m serious,” Iggy insists, reaching out to hold the flap steady. “Shoot him in the head, float him out an air vent, we pick his ship for scraps and no one’s any the wiser.”

“That’s sick,” she informs him, pulling out her wire cutters. She adjusts the setting on the laser, and then pulls the wires out of the way of the casing at the back of the compartment.  Iggy reaches in to take them out of her hand, and she guides his hand. “No, hold it like this or I’ll take your hand off.”

He moves his hand as instructed, continuing the conversation undeterred. “How’s it sick? Not like he’d give any of us a chance in our position is it?”

“Because that’s the standard we should be holding ourselves to,” Mandy says drily, as she starts cutting into the metal. “It’s a person,” she continues. “Don’t you care about that at all?”

“No,” Iggy says bluntly. “That’s not a person, Mandy, it’s a threat. You can cry about it all you like, but sooner or later one of us is gonna need to put a bullet in him. I just don't see much point in waiting around for it.”

Mandy stops, pulling back from under the control panel, and looks Iggy in the eye. “You really think you could do that? Just kill a guy in cold blood and be ok with it?”

“I know I can,” Iggy says with surety. “I have.”

Mandy’s stomach turns. “Well, do you think Mickey can?”

That shuts him up. Iggy’s face is suddenly serious, his mouth a thin, tense line.

“Because you know that’s how it’ll be,” she presses. “That if he decides to kill him, he’ll see it as on him. You think he can be ok with that, after everything?”

There's a moment of quiet as they both think back a few years, back to Terry and the resistance and escalating violence. Back to when Iggy killed people without blinking and was almost…someone else.

“Ok,” Iggy says gruffly, breaking the silence. “Well if we’re not going to kill him, what do you suggest? All hold hands and make friends?”

“No,” she retorts, rolling her eyes and dragging the o sound out to make it clear that that much should be obvious. “Let’s just wait and see what Mickey comes up with first. Shit.” The last word comes as she finishes disconnecting the wires. The result leaves her none the wiser as to what any of them do, and certainly doesn’t throw any light on their prisoner.

“This one’s weapons I think,” Iggy says from above her, and she pulls her head back out of the navigational array and looks at where he’s pointing.

“Yeah I’d say so,” she agrees. “Not sure that helps though.” She’s pretty sure intel isn’t the reason Iggy’s so interested in the weapons panel, and half of her’s starting to think that maybe them having a defensive capability isn’t such a bad plan. It had been a close call today, and she can feel the anxiety seeping out of both of her brothers as a result.

Mandy’s caught herself thinking before that out of all of them, Iggy got the better end of the deal. He’d always seemed so comfortable in Terry’s wake, so unaffected by everything. It’s times like this that she realises it’s the opposite, that Terry got to Iggy first out of all of them and that so many times he had taken on much more than his fair share of Terry’s expectation and with it so much more of the consequences too. She’s seen the scars, from the prison camp, the adult one that Mickey never had to endure. She’s seen the scars from Terry too, even though those ones are much harder to pick out. Something in the way Iggy moves sometimes. The way his hand shakes, just a little. The way he’s all too happy to take orders from Mickey.

The way he values his guns above all else.

“I can look into some defences, if you want,” she says suddenly. “I’m not promising anything, the ship wasn’t really designed for—”

“Thanks,” Iggy says quietly, running his hands lightly over the panel. “It’s cool though. I know we’re supposed to be low profile.”

“Maybe a shield though? This ship might have something I could work from.”

His trademark grin slots back in place. “Yeah. I bet you can Mands. I wonder if—”

He’s cut off by a sudden alarm on the left hand panel, shrill and constant with accompanying red lights.

Iggy curses, and Mandy waves her hand at him.

“Shh,” she hisses, her eyes flicking over what she’d already assumed would be the comms display. “It’s some sort of tracking beacon.” She grabs her hand-held out of her bag, and taps in a few commands. Her heart sinks. “It’s on all channels,” she says flatly. “Everyone can see it. It must be set to go off automatically when the ship’s been out of contact for too long.”

“I don’t give a shit why it’s going off,” Iggy interjects. “We need get that thing turned off before they come looking.”

“You got any bright ideas?” she shoots back. “Didn’t think so. If it’s an auto-response, then the beacon itself gotta be hidden somewhere on the ship. There’s no way we can find it in time.” Her mind’s moving too fast for her words to keep up, matching solutions with problems and then new solutions and then— Of course.

“Well,” she says. “Let’s just hope Mickey didn’t kill him yet.”

*

“Ok,” Mickey says when Mandy tells him.

“Ok? You think you can get him to—”

“I’ll make it work,” he says, although he’s got no idea how. He hasn’t been back in there since he punched the wall, having opted instead to wait until Mandy got back to him with something tangible he could use as leverage.

This wasn’t what he’d been hoping for, but that doesn’t mean it’s useless either. He flexes his fist, uses the pain throbbing through his knuckles to focus his thoughts away from the pain in his head.

“Right then,” she says. “Just make it quick.”

“Never mind me,” he retorts. “Just get the damn engines on.”

“Already on it,” she says sweetly, and then she hangs up. Mickey mutters something uncharitable under his breath, and then stalks back towards the office, pulling his plan together as he goes.

“Well then,” he says when he re-enters the room. “Looks like you got yourself a little problem.”

Nothing. The soldier doesn’t even acknowledge Mickey’s presence in the room.

“See, that ship of yours is making a little call home. Reckon they don’t like their toys being out of reach for too long.”

Still nothing.

Mickey perseveres. He’s got his angle, and he’s going to work it to its conclusion. “Now, see the trouble is that out here, it’s not your people who are gonna come looking. That thing’s out on all channels, so before you know it, there’s gonna be bounty hunters fighting over that ship. And over you.”

There’s a flicker on the soldier’s face. Barely there, but there all the same.

“And see, I reckon that it’s not gonna look all too good if you end up going home in a bounty hunter’s brig. I think there’s a word for people that happens to. Bet they won’t think too much of you then.”

The soldier swallows, and then he blinks, and Mickey feels a little jolt of triumph.

“Now, I’m willing to do you a deal. I’m a nice guy like that. You go back down to that docking bay, and you disarm that tracker. And then you tell us what we need to know. And in return, you can come along with us until we find a place to drop you off.”

There’s a moment of quiet, and Mickey almost folds, almost declares the whole thing a lost cause. And then, the soldier speaks for the first time.

“If I don’t?”

His voice isn’t quite what Mickey expected. It has all the trademarks of the few Alliance soldiers he’s dealt with in the past—the careful, deliberate placement of words, as if each one’s a choice with potential consequences; the slightly mocking, superior edge to the tone like the whole thing’s a waste of his energy—but there’s something else there this time. A hint of uncertainty, vulnerability even. As if Mickey’s somehow _finally_ struck a nerve.

“If you don’t,” he says, trying to keep his own voice just as careful and calm, “then we cripple your ship and strip it for parts, and we leave it and you out here for the bounty hunters to find.” He shrugs. “Makes no odds to me.”

It’s a lie, or half a one at least.

There’s another moment, and then—

“I’ll do it.”


	3. Chapter 3

****Ian’s not entirely sure what his plan is here.

Even to his currently addled mind, the idea of committing treason to avoid being accused of it seems nonsensical; he blames the extreme lack of alternative options on the fact that his brain is somehow not making the connections it should, a situation which he presumes has resulted from whatever archaic form of technology dragged him here in the first place. Either way, regardless of his brain’s current lack of function, he refuses to just sit back and let his life, his future, get stolen from him. He’s not a traitor, and he’s got no intention of being dragged back in cuffs and accused of being a deserter either.

He remembers enough of them to know that his family’s relying on him doing anything but that.

He takes advantage of the fact that he’s slightly more lucid than when he arrived to take stock of his surroundings as his captor marches him back towards the docking bay and his Defender. If he had to guess, he’d say they’re somewhere at the back of the ship, although he’d expect to hear the engines if that were the case. Instead, there’s just eerie silence broken only by his own even, ordered footsteps and the other man’s quicker steps behind him. He can feel the urgency in the speed he’s been encouraged into, and he ignores it. He counts his steps as he goes, takes note of the doors and corridors that they pass. It won’t take him long to memorise this whole ship, and that can only be to his advantage.

When they arrive down in the docking bay, his steps still carefully measured, they’re met by a young woman with long dark hair and a ring through her nose. He gives her a cursory glance, and then while she and her crewmate engage in a terse conversation in a language that’s both alien and harsh-sounding to Ian’s ears, he gives the docking bay his attention.

It’s small, as he’d expect from the scans he’d been able to run before whatever it was had pulled him to wherever they are, and with his own ship taking up more than half the space it’s fairly tightly packed. There’s three small pods that are probably designed to fit one person on short distance excursions, and in one corner there’s another ship covered by a dark blue cloth, only recognisable as more than a pile of scrap metal by the shape that the cloth makes over it. There’s a small workstation in the corner opposite, and one of the three pods is clearly under repair.

“Hey,” the man says, and Ian turns back to look at him. “Eyes to yourself,” he continues. “You got a job to be doing down here and nothing else.” There’s a suspicious edge to his voice, and Ian takes note of it, reminds himself to be more careful if he hopes to survive this. His initial assessment when they’d first come across the ship’s energy signature, that it was probably down-on-their-luck traders trying to make a quick buck, is being quickly reassessed. Everything he’s seen so far suggests these guys are much smarter than that, and that they possibly have previous experience running into Alliance patrols.

His silence is apparently taken as acquiescence, because then the other man turns back to the girl and says, “Watch him,” to her, that edge still in his voice. “And double check whatever he tells you before you go cutting into shit.”

“Here was me intending to give him run of the ship and hang off his every word,” she responds drily, and Ian has to resist the urge to laugh, which is a surprising and unfamiliar reaction. “Relax, Mickey. I know what I’m doing. I got it.”

‘Mickey’ nods tersely, and turns sharply on his heel back the way they came. The girl looks Ian up and down twice, and then her eyes settle over his face. He shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny, which he guesses is probably her intention, and then finally she nods to herself.

“I’m Mandy,” she says, and then waits expectantly for a response. He doesn’t give one, and she rolls her eyes. “Suit yourself. Come along, No-Name.” She inclines her head towards the Defender, and when he doesn’t move she adds an eyebrow raise. “You first,” she says, as if that much is obvious.

He moves towards the ship, and he hears her steps behind him, heavy and undisciplined like the other man’s had been. He can’t figure them out—can’t place where they fit. It’s too disciplined for pirates, not the right MO for Resistance. This is something…other. Mandy and Mickey he assumes are related, siblings if he had to guess—there’s something in their eyes that’s too similar to be coincidence, a familiarity between them that suggests years of working to each other’s strengths. There must be others here though, even on a small ship like this, and Ian wonders absently how many people there are crewing the ship—he’s good, but he’s not indestructible. He’s going to need to find a way to incapacitate them, once he’s figured out how he gets his Defender out.

He leads the way up into the ship, Mandy close behind him, and heads into the cockpit. Someone—he assumes Mandy, given her continued presence—has already had all the maintenance panels off, and he shoots a careful, covert glance up to where the concealed space sits above his comms. It’s untouched and that at least gives him a sense of comfort, even if he’s not sure how he’ll retrieve what he needs from it.

“Well?” she says from behind him. “Let’s get going.”

He nods, in response, and taps a few commands into the comms panel. “It’s still emitting a signal,” he says, and she sighs.

“I know that. I need to know where it is so I can disable it.”

Ian tenses. He doesn’t actually know that part. The whole point of the device is as a deterrent to ensure they don’t abscond, and all he really knows is that it’s supposed to be strong enough that the Alliance can find you anywhere. No one escapes, or so he’s heard.

“You don’t know, do you?” she asks, and he sets his jaw, keeps his eyes on the panel. She sighs, and he’s convinced that’s it, she’ll haul him back off the ship and have her brother kill him. Instead, she pats him on the shoulder, and then she says, “Ok, so this is gonna take longer than I thought. What does that do?” She points at the control sequence he’s got keyed into the comms, and he looks at her with a frown.

“It’s a diagnostic,” he says tightly. “I’m hoping it might—”

“Oh! It might give us an idea where to look?” Her eyes light up, her face excited. “Brilliant.”

Ian just stares at her in disbelief. “I don’t— Why are you doing this?”

She shrugs. “I figure you want to be here even less than we want you here. Doesn't seem right to kill you over an accident of velocity.”

Ian frowns. “But you could still just hand me over. You could make some money out of me.”

She shoots him a look that's both amused and pitying. “What, you think we’re not worth something to a bounty hunter? Think there’s not prices on our heads? Bounty hunters are dishonourable pricks. They’d take you and us and save themselves the finder’s fee.”

Ian has to admit that he _hadn’t_ considered that possibility. He’s aware that there’s supposedly no honour among thieves, but he hadn’t realised that mentality might actually extend to Outsiders turning on each other for profit.

“Hey,” she says sharply. “Don’t think that just because I’m giving you a chance it makes me soft. You put my family in danger and I’ll float you out an airlock. Won’t even think twice.”

The casual way she makes the threat would sound ridiculous, like baseless grandstanding, if not for the barely contained ferocity in her voice, the determined set of her jaw, and Ian doesn’t doubt for a second that she’d follow through on it without even blinking.

He has to admit that he admires her for it.

“Understood,” he says, and she nods.

“Well, we’ve got work to do. Let’s get to it.”

*

Mickey’s been on the control deck for thirty minutes when the engines suddenly roar into life, setting the ship back into its familiar vibrations. He lays his head against the head support and closes his eyes, letting the sensation flow through him, ground him back into his body. He hadn’t realised how adrift he’d felt with the engines down, but with them running again he’s starting to feel a little more normal, even if his head is still pounding uncomfortably.

Iggy arrives five minutes later, grinning triumphantly, and Mickey turns to greet him. “You got them started?” he asks, and Iggy shrugs.

“Wasn’t hard. Mandy told me how.”

“You mean Mandy already did most of the work,” Mickey says, with a half-hearted laugh that seems to die on his lips.

Iggy laughs, a proper laugh that fills the small space. “Same thing, right? Either way, we’re good to go when she gives us the signal.”

Mickey nods and settles back into his chair. Iggy takes the other seat and looks curiously at him.

“You doing ok?”

“Terrific,” Mickey mutters.

“It doesn’t make you like him, you know,” Iggy says. “If you wanted to kill that guy. He’s just a soldier, Mickey. One of them.”

Mickey’s not sure which is worse, that he had wanted to  kill him—and he had—or that he knew, deep down, that if it had come to it, he wouldn’t have been able to do it. He’s not sure if even the Mickey Milkovich of five years ago, angry and bitter and fuelled by his father, could have shot a defenceless man in cold blood.

The Mickey Milkovich of today definitely can’t.

“Doesn’t matter,” he says. “Let it play out this way.”

“Sure,” Iggy says agreeably. “And what next?”

“We trade the shit we risked our asses for,” Mickey says. “And then we dump soldier-boy first chance we get.”

“You sure about that first part?” Iggy asks carefully. “We got no idea who placed that job. Could be walking into something.”

Iggy’s not wrong. Mickey’s already considered the possibility of an ambush, or a trap, or a dozen other things, but when it comes down to him he’s damned if he’s not going to get something out of the shitshow this has turned into. All they’ve got to show for the last twelve hours is an unwelcome passenger and a bag of junk, and as far as he’s concerned he’s due payment for that bag of junk.

The unwelcome passenger won’t be so easy, but that can wait. That’s going to require some consideration.

“We’ll take it careful,” he says, in answer to Iggy’s concern. “Usual shit. Scope the place, leave someone here so we can make a quick exit. We did the job, we’re damn sure gonna get paid for it.”

“I got some people looking into who placed the ad,” Iggy says. “Might throw up some info.”

Mickey nods. “Good,” he says, chewing his lip. “Set up the swap. Make it somewhere we know, if you can. I don’t want any surprises.”

“Sure thing,” Iggy says, his hand-held already out. “Then what, we head to Sveta’s and lay low for a while? Let it blow over?”

Mickey shoots him a look. “You forget who we got down in the docking bay? No, we need to ditch him first. No way are we taking him near any of our usual places.”

“OK,” Iggy sighs, resigned. “Let’s just hope we ditch his ass sooner rather than later then.”

Mickey can’t say he disagrees.

*

Mandy eventually finds the beacon, buried deep within the engine. Ian’s surprised by how impressed he is, how the victorious feeling of shared success burns through him when she emerges from the underside of his Defender with tendrils of hair hanging loose, her face coated with a layer of dirt and grease, and a triumphant glint in her eye.

“Got it,” she says. “Now we need to figure out how to disconnect it without fucking up the navigational system.”

“Can I see?” he asks, and she nods, sliding out of the way to make room for him. It’s obvious now he knows where to look, flashing red and dangerous. His blood runs cold just looking at it, thinking about how this is supposed to go. “Can’t you just cut the wires?” he asks, and Mandy shakes her head.

“Not if you want the ship to ever be operational again,” she says. “It’s hard-wired into the navigational and communications systems—apparently you guys don’t like to leave things to chance.”

No wonder no-one gets away, Ian thinks. Even if you dismantle the thing, it leaves you crippled and alone, and even if the Alliance don’t find you, even if you manage to evade the bounty hunters, you’ll be left floating in space until nature does its work.

That had nearly been his fate.

“Ok,” he says slowly. “Can we get it out, and leave it operational?”

Mandy frowns. “Maybe? Less connections to deal with, but then it’s still sending out a signal?”

“No, I know,” he says. “But if we left it transmitting, and put it inside another ship then—”

“It would draw the bounty hunters to its location,” she says, realisation dawning. “And give us chance to get far enough away.”

He nods, waiting for her agreement.

“Need to check with the others,” she says. “Wait.” She takes out a small comms device, trapping it between her ear and shoulder while she takes another look in at the beacon. “Mickey,” she says, and then continues in that harsh language she and Mickey had used before. He listens anyway, tracks her tone and the time between responses and the eventual agreement she seems to get. “Mickey says to go for it,” she says, reverting to the Common Tongue, and then she wastes no time in poking her head back in towards the beacon, a different tool in each hand.

Ian rocks back onto his heels for a minute, considering. So there’s others, plural, but Mickey’s in charge. He’d assumed as much, but it’s good to get confirmation.

“Hey,” Mandy says from inside the engine. “Can you go back up to the comms panel and make sure this thing just maintains its signal? Don’t want to set anything off.”

“No problem,” he says, and he heads back up to the cockpit before she can change her mind.

He does check the comms panel first—no change, no change, no change, on every screen—but then he eyes the compartment above. This could be his only chance.

Luckily, he’s got plenty of experience removing this thing, even if it is an emergency stash. The panel cover comes off clean, and he retrieves his pack while still keeping an eye on the comms. No change.

Working out how to secrete his shit in his clothing is more difficult—eventually he gets the two vials into the inside pocket of his jacket, and the syringe into his trouser pocket, but that doesn’t give him much of a dose. Two weeks, at most. He’s going to need to find another solution, if he’s not back on base by then. He half-wonders if his source will even resupply without him there, but he dismisses that thought as not helpful. He’s got to get back first, after all.

“Any change?” Mandy shouts up, and he leans over to double check as he shouts back that it’s all good. By the time she shouts him down, beacon in hand, the panel’s back in place as if nothing had ever happened.

“You did it!” he says, genuinely impressed.

She grins. “Luckily, I’m a fucking genius,” she says. “Plus, I don’t think they planned for this. Guessing they don’t train you to think for yourselves?” She pauses, and he stiffens, and she carries on as if she hadn’t said anything. “Right, let’s get started on Phase Two.”

They use the pod that’s under repair—“It’s a lost cause anyway,” Mandy says—and she goes as far as to wire it right into the engine. She says it’s just to make sure the trick works, but Ian thinks that at least partly she just likes the challenge.

He’s never seen anyone work like she does—the techs back on the base have very strict roles, their areas of knowledge and responsibility clearly defined and restricted. Instead, Mandy seems to instinctively understand _engines_ , to the point that he has no doubt that she could learn his Defender, could learn any ship, could probably improve on them. With that in mind, her third pod seems less a lost cause and more an easy sacrifice, and that says a lot. Whoever else is on the ship, they’re all family to Mandy. They’re all worth the loss of a project, the abandonment of belief.

When it’s done, they take a side each and push it right to the mouth of the docking bay. “We make a good team,” Mandy says, as she programs a flight path into the autopilot. “Shame we’re on different sides.”

Ian barely acknowledges her, not even as the bay doors open and the pod follows its programmed path.

If he’s honest, he’s thinking the exact same thing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even gonna talk about how long it's been since I updated this.

There are two types of meal times on the Milkovich ship.

There’s the solitary, efficient kind: a fast refuelling of nutrients by way of ration packs between shifts of comm-duty and sleep and whatever-the-hell-else needs doing. Alternatively, on occasion there’s the raucous, joyful kind: a drawn-out occasion of real food and company and a state of just _being_ that even as the years pass never seems to quite lose its novelty.

Mickey’s allegiance switches between the two—sometimes he just wants to be alone with his thoughts and even the company of his siblings is too much, other times he craves company with a hungry need that he sates by instigating daily family meals. Today, he finds himself hoping for the latter kind of meal time, even though he know that only the former’s on offer. Iggy’s on comms, having taken over  a couple of hours ago in a failed attempt to get Mickey to get some sleep after he’d insisted on pulling double shift, and Mandy’s harder to pin down but probably lost in her own thoughts inside a maintenance tube somewhere.

So he’s surprised when, on entering their tiny mess room that is kitchen and dining room combined, he’s met by the smell of oats cooking, followed swiftly by the sight of the pot on the top of their little stove being kept warm by the residual heat, the lid balanced precariously on top of the gap created by the ladle abandoned there. It’s a sure sign that Mandy’s been here already, because she’s the only one of them who ever seems to get the mix just right.

The thing is that Mandy’s not a cook, not really—she says she finds it too unpredictable, too much flair and not enough structure. Iggy’s the one who cooks usually, finding ingenious ways to merge their limited natural supplies with their wide variance of ration packs and turn them into actual meals. One of the very few exceptions is the thick porridge that had been a staple of their diets as children; while Iggy’s is fine, it’s never the right texture or even the right taste, whereas somehow Mandy can recreate it with ease. _It’s just a formula_ , she explained with a shrug whenever her brothers asked. _Just like fixing an engine._

He’s not going to complain—he’d been expecting a protein bar at best—but he can’t help but wonder about her timing. There are three bowls missing from the stack, and he would put money on who the extra portion’s been given to.

He’s on his second bowl when Mandy comes in, two empty bowls stacked in her hands. “Oh good, you're up,” she says breezily. “Good?” she asks, indicating towards his bowl with her free hand.

He nods, mumbling an acknowledgment as she heads towards the cleaning unit and dumps the bowls in. “We feeding him now?” he asks her pointedly.

“Well we’re not starving him,” she shoots back, just as pointed. “Besides, none of us ate anything all day yesterday. We needed something substantial.”

“Yeah, _we_ ,” he says. “Not soldier-boy down there.”

She sighs. “He needs to eat too, Mickey.”

“Oh yeah?” he says, eyebrows raised in emphasis. “Says who?”

“The laws of nature.” There’s an edge of humour to her tone, and somehow it only serves to rile Mickey’s temper.

“Did you forget what he is?” he demands in frustration.

Mandy frowns at him. “He was a human being, last I checked.” Mickey opens his mouth to fire another retort, but she cuts him off. “Yes, I’m very aware of who he is, Mickey. But that doesn’t mean we have to be callous.”

“Doesn’t mean we should be cooking him Mom’s kasha either,” Mickey mutters.

Mandy’s quiet for a minute. “I didn’t make it for him,” she says, her voice softer. “I made it for you and Iggy, and for me, because yesterday was shit and we deserved some comfort.”

“So why share it with him? Plenty of dry ration packs if you’re so concerned for his well-being.”

“Honestly? Because yesterday wasn’t so great for him either Mick. He’s stranded out here away from everything he knows.”

There’s an alarm going off in Mickey’s head. “ _Mandy_ ,” he says, his voice low and cautionary. He doesn’t mean the tone quite the way it comes out, but it’s too late by the time he realises.

There’s a flash of anger in Mandy’s eyes, and a warning tone of her own when she replies. “Don’t,” she says. “Don’t you dare use your captain voice on me. You’re in charge up there, not down here. That was the deal.”

“I didn’t—” he starts, and then stops. Thinks for a minute. He _hadn’t_ meant it the way she’d interpreted it. He, of all people, would never breach the terms of the deal the three of them had made three years ago. Work is work, and there are expectations and responsibilities. Anything else is personal, and they don’t get involved in each other’s private business. Whether it’s Iggy fucking around on every stop-off they’ve made thus far, or Mandy genially flirting with anyone who’ll take an interest but never going any further, or Mickey occasionally taking a man to his bed to scratch the itches he can’t reach for himself, the siblings keep to a strict code of not commenting. The legacy of living under Terry Milkovich’s thumb is that they don’t just value their own privacy, but each other’s as well. Mickey would never risk that. If she’s got a thing for their reluctantly acquired captive then that’s her business.

Him staying on the ship, though. That’s definitely Mickey’s business.

Mandy’s staring at him, he realises. “I just—” he tries again, before settling on the best explanation for his unease that he can find. “Not everyone’s as good as you, Mandy.”

Mandy rolls her eyes. “It’s just breakfast Mick. No big deal. Anyway,” she breezes on before Mickey can argue back, “Iggy’s finally got a drop sorted for that gear we swiped. Time to suit up big bro’.” She shoots him a winning smile, and Mickey shakes his head at her but somehow can’t stop his lips twitching in response.

“Ok,” he says. “Give me the details.”

She gives him a quick, perfunctory overview of the arrangements Iggy’s made. There’s nothing unusual about it, a standard trade-off of goods for credits, but there’s still something lingering that he can’t quite put his finger on.

“Hey, Mands? Does something strike you as off about this whole thing?”

She frowns. “What, the job?”

“Yeah. Just seems like we’re missing something.

“In what way?”

“I dunno. It’s just, it was a lot of money being offered for it, and none of that shit’s actually worth anything.”

“Sentimental value?”

“That only goes so far though, surely? I mean, we’ve done a lot more work for a hell of a lot less money before. No way does someone pay that for sentiment.”

She thinks for a minutes, brow still creased, and then her face clears and she shrugs. “I dunno, maybe? But then what can we do about it now? We’ve done it, we’ve taken the consequences, time to get paid right?”

*

It takes Mandy all of ten minutes to realise that their contact isn’t going to show. She estimates that it probably takes Mickey half that time to come to the same conclusion, and twice as long to actually accept it.

The busy marketplace wouldn’t have been Mandy’s preferred option for an exchange point. She tends to opt for isolated locations where they can scope the landscape and have a clearer vantage point, but this had been Iggy’s assignment this time around and he always goes for somewhere busy, claiming it’s easier to blend in and drop off without drawing attention.

Mickey, unusually, has never stated a preference. It’s not something Mandy’s ever pressed him on, but she’d hazard a guess that it would be too much like playing favourites for Mickey’s liking.

“I got nothing,” she mutters into her comm. She hates the in-ear ones, only ever agreeing to wear them in situations like this when there’s no other option, and she winces when there’s a hiss of feedback distorting Mickey’s own negative response. He’s on one of the upper levels somewhere, keeping a clear visual over the whole area, mostly because he hates the tight quarters of the large crowds.

Unease prickles her skin, and she can’t help but think back to their conversation that morning.

She wanders between stalls, careful to give her progression around the square an impression of aimlessness, stopping every so often to pay more attention to the produce on offer, making an even more occasional purchase.

It's the uniform she sees, rather than the people wearing it, a uniform she's been taught her whole life to be afraid of and then to hate, a uniform that she's learned from experience never means anything good.

“Mickey,” she hisses. “ _Patrol.”_

He breathes, rather than speaks, the string of home-grown curses that he lets out in response. “Meet you back at the pod,” he says, and that’s all he tells her but it’s all she needs. They’ve played this one a million times before.

Her heart pounding, but her breathing steady, she stops at the next stall. Chats to the trader about what she’s offering, even catches her eye and flirts a little. Gets a good deal on a cute shirt. The trader drops a piece of a comms frequency into the shirt as she folds it, and Mandy smiles at her winningly and then moves on.

Past two stalls, a soldier in between them. Eyes forward. Stops at the next stall, pays over the odds for engine oil. Ignores the soldier that she can see in the corner of her eye.

She repeats the same tactic until she’s made her way painstakingly slowly through the market with an armful of purchases that she didn’t need but knows they can make use of, and then she’s out of the main courtyard and moving towards the big open space where they've landed their pod amongst the other shuttles.

Mickey’s already there when she gets back.

She folds herself into the cramped seat, and doesn’t look at him until they’re off the ground and almost out of the atmosphere. When she does, his face is pulled in tight, worried lines. “Maybe you were right,” she says quietly. “Maybe there is more to this than we thought.”

“Sorry, what was that?” Mickey teases, but then he sees her face and straightens his own. “Look, this isn’t on you, ok?”

“Isn’t it? Was my idea, to strip that junker.”

“Yeah, for the parts we needed. The job was just a bonus.”

“The job just nearly got us killed for a couple of entertainment cubes Mick, it was hardly a bonus.”

“Mandy, if we hadn't gone out to that ship we’d probably be slowly suffocating right now. I’d take this over that every time.”

Mandy laughs, a little forced but still genuine. “Comes to something when that’s how we’re measuring it. At least we’re not suffocating to death.”

He indicates the pile in her lap. “At least we’re not suffocating to death _and_ you got to go shopping. I’d call that a damn good day.”

They pull into the open doors of the docking bay, and Mickey hops out of his side and then gestures for her to hand over the packages so she can slide out herself. He spreads them out on the nearest work surface, humming in approval.

“I picked up some protein cubes,” she says.  “The salted ones that Iggy likes. At least we can eat a decent meal tonight.”

Mickey casts an eye over her purchases. “Four portions,” he says, his voice neutral.

She raises her chin, just a little. “Yeah,” she says. “Four.”

Mickey’s mouth twists, and she knows what’s coming. “You know there’s no way out of this, don’t you? He can’t stay forever, and even if we do find somewhere to drop him off we can’t do that either because the first thing he’s gonna do is call home and tell them all about us. Hell, he’ll probably get a promotion out of it.”

“Oh come on Mickey. You and I both know that he’s already been gone too long for them to take him back—and as someone who’s actually managed to hold a conversation with him, I’m pretty sure that he knows it too. He’s not going back, ever.”

“Ok, and so when he’s stuck out here somewhere by himself with no food and nowhere to go, who’s to say he doesn't just sell out to the highest bidder huh?”

Mandy can't help but laugh at that. “Seriously? We’re old news Mick. No one gives a shit where we are or what we’re doing, and he has no clue who we are anyway—he thinks we’re merchants! What’s he gonna sell?”

“Mandy, we were pilfering an Alliance wreck when that patrol turned up. They caught us red-handed. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t think we’re merchants.”

Mandy shrugs. “Merchants with questionable acquisition habits. Nothing to suggest anything more than that, and if we keep it that way then no one needs to get hurt.”

“You mean he doesn’t get hurt,” Mickey says pointedly. “That’s not the same thing.” Mickey pauses for a minute, weighing something up. “Do you want to get in his pants, is that what this is about? Because honestly, I get it but—”

Mandy cuts him off before he can take that train of thought further. “Fuck, no.” He probably has no idea how far from reality that actually is. To say she’s not intrigued by their new shipmate would be a lie, although it’s not an attraction—she’s not going to deny his obvious physical attributes, but she’s not going to ignore his origins either, and besides she’s got enough on her plate in that area. No, her fascination is something else entirely, more like a deep-seated affinity that she hasn't quite figured out yet. Mickey looks sceptical, and she insists again, “That’s not it Mick, I swear.”

“Then what? I know you’re the one with the conscience here Mands but I don’t get why it’s so important to you that this guy, who would kill you without being asked twice by the way, gets out of this?”

She doesn't answer right away.

Mickey’s expression could almost be described as pitying. She knows what he’s thinking, what motivations he’s prescribing to her behaviour: she’s too soft, too easily swayed by sad stories from pretty faces. _Not everyone's as good as you, Mandy._ It’s a sentiment he’s repeated over the years, and she knows he means it well, intends to compliment her on a quality he can’t find evidence of in himself. It feels like a cage instead, suffocating and restrictive, an expectation she cannot hope to live up to.

Her freedom had been bought with the suffering of others, and no matter what she’s done since that’s a debt she’ll never repay.

There's no way to explain it to him except: “What’s the point of us being out here if all we are is just like him? Everything we did, Mickey. There’s no point if we don’t make something better out of it. We have to make it worth what we did.”

Mickey’s mouth is a thin line. “What we did was survival. That’s all. We don’t owe a damn thing to anyone.”

“Don’t we? We fucked a lot of people over, good people.”

“They knew what they were getting into,” Mickey points out.

“Yeah, and that wasn’t it! They were no different to us. They didn’t deserve it, what happened.”

“What, and we did? Why are you bringing this up now?” He’s looking at her in confusion, his eyebrows pulled together. Her gut twists guiltily at raking all of this back up.

“Because I’ve been thinking about it, and because I realised something. What we did, it has to be worth something.”

“It is,” Mickey says. “We’re away from him, isn’t that enough?”

“Not for me,” she says softly. “It has to be different. We have to be better than him.”

“Ok, fine. That doesn’t mean you need to fawn over some Alliance soldier just because you feel bad about what happened.”

“Yes it does, ok? He’s not just an Alliance soldier. He’s a person, Mickey, and we’ve just destroyed his entire life. They’re not gonna take him back.”

“That doesn’t mean he won’t try, Mandy. Desperation’s a powerful thing.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “But it doesn’t mean we should act like dicks in the meantime. Be the change you want to see, remember?”

The words are their mother’s rather than her own, and it feels almost fraudulent to use them. It’s not as if any of them have ever lived up to those words, Mandy least of all. Still, they have the effect of silencing her brother, at least for the moment.

*

Ian’s disappointed when Mickey, rather than Mandy, delivers his meal that evening.

He's presuming it’s evening, anyway. Without the artificial routine of the Barracks, it’s hard to tell, but Mandy had specifically referred to the smoky-tasting porridge she’d brought that morning as breakfast, and she’d left him a ration pack for lunch, as she put it, which he’d stashed untouched at the bottom of the pack she'd let him retrieve from his Defender the night before. He hasn’t seen Mickey since he’d delivered Ian into Mandy’s custody in the docking bay, and Ian had been hoping to go a lot longer than this before seeing him again.

He’s in a different room to the one he’d originally been held in, clearly intended as quarters for crew. It’s small and cramped, barely enough space for the two metal bed frames, which are bolted to the grid floor and sparsely furnished with thin mattresses and blankets. There’s a door to a bathroom which is equally cramped, the sink and toilet almost on top of each other and a small shower unit crammed into the corner. Compared to his usual accommodation, the long dormitory and communal bathroom that he’d shared with his fellow soldiers, this is almost suffocating.

He’d quickly deduced that he's not getting out of this room without his captors' say-so. The security here isn't the little electronic pads that Lip had eagerly taught him to override when they were children, his big brain always working, whirring, processing new data. No, the locks here were far more basic: a thick steel door and walls that he couldn't hope to break into, and some sort of loud, interlocking system that he'd heard pulling into place when Mandy had left the night before.

By the time Mickey enters his room (his cell, as far as Ian’s concerned), Ian’s reached peak boredom level. He’s repeated his usual exercise regimen so many times that his muscles are aching, a phenomenon that he hasn’t experienced for several years, and has spent much longer than usual on meditation, which combined with his meds has left his mind somewhat fuzzy. Mickey’s carrying a plate of mashed potatoes, a thick stew, brightly coloured vegetables. He puts it down onto the table between the two beds, and sits down opposite Ian.

There’s a tense, heavy silence, until Ian’s stomach growls loudly and he reaches for the plate and starts to eat. He’s surprised, as he had been that morning, how good it tastes. The potatoes have got the distinctive gritty texture of rehydrated food rations, and the protein cubes are bland as always, but the vegetables are fresh, and more importantly _real_ , and the thick gravy of the stew tastes rich and wholesome. It’s an unexpected change from the tasteless rations at the Barracks.

“This is good,” he says, carefully. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, well don’t get used to it.”

The silence stretches uncomfortably, only broken by the sound of Ian chewing which seems impossibly loud.

“Let me make something clear,” Mickey says finally. “The only reason that you’re still here is because Mandy asked me to give you a chance. That’s it.”

Ian blinks, swallows, and then looks up to meet Mickey’s eyes.

“So, here’s what we’re gonna do,” Mickey continues without waiting for a response. “This room’s yours, and in exchange, you’re gonna help us out where we need it. You get food, running water. And then we find you somewhere to go, and we all act like this never happened. That’s the deal.”

Ian weighs the proposition in his head, measure risk against reward. He can’t see an obvious solution, and that bothers him more than he expected. He’s got nothing to bargain with, and nowhere to go, and he’s still trying to process everything that’s happened since he got pulled into all of this.

His Defender, yanked out of his control and out into the depths of space. Himself, lost and captive and— _shit_ , helping his captors to escape justice. Committing treason, to save his own skin.

“What makes you think I want to stay here?” he asks, his voice level and emotionless.

Mickey snorts. “Man, I don’t give a damn what you do. Your little tracking beacon’s gone, and if anyone was coming after you we’ve got enough of a head start to give them the run around for years. So stay, or go, doesn’t matter to me.”

“Then why—?”

“Because apparently my sister has decided to make a project out of you, and I told her I’d make you an offer. Which I have. Rest’s up to you.” He stands up and moves towards the door. It takes about three steps.

Ian’s mind is fast, but not that fast. “Wait,” he says, buying time while his brain slots facts into place. Risk, reward, cost, benefit. He’s pushed into a corner and he resents that, hates that this jumped up merchant has this kind of power over him. But he’s out of options, and the one thing he needs right now is time. He can buy it, if he agrees to this, can delay his demise long enough to hopefully get to one of the inner planets, alert a local militia to contact the Peacekeeper headquarters. He can still fix this, if he keeps his head, if he remembers his training.

“I’m not doing anything illegal,” he says, allowing an edge of petulant defiance to slip into his tone.

Mickey smiles unkindly. “Depends on which laws you’re following. Out here we don’t go much for Alliance rules.”

“Nothing that will risk me going home,” Ian insists. “No violence.”

Mickey makes a disbelieving face. “How much violence do you think goes down at markets and trade deals? If we shoot each other we got no one to do business with.”

“Then I guess we won’t have a problem then,” Ian says.

“Guess we won’t.”

“It’s just until I figure out how to get back.”

“That’s what I said.”

“Then I guess you have a deal.”

“Guess _you_ do,” Mickey corrects him. “I’ll be back tomorrow with a work assignment.”

He leaves without another word, and Ian hears the lock slide back into place outside. Unsurprising, but still frustrating. He can’t do much when he’s confined to a room that’s about as wide as he is tall. He thinks back to the meds stashed under the thin mattress on the cot. Two weeks’ supply. Four weeks, if he stretches it. He can do that, hold out for four weeks, until he finds some leverage to get him back in.

He can do that. He can.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Come talk to me at allidon.tumblr.com


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